Extracting Event Data from Databases to Unleash Process Mining

Wil M. P. Aalst ()
Additional contact information
Wil M. P. Aalst: Eindhoven University of Technology

A chapter in BPM - Driving Innovation in a Digital World, 2015, pp 105-128 from Springer

Abstract: Abstract Increasingly organizations are using process mining to understand the way that operational processes are executed. Process mining can be used to systematically drive innovation in a digitalized world. Next to the automated discovery of the real underlying process, there are process-mining techniques to analyze bottlenecks, to uncover hidden inefficiencies, to check compliance, to explain deviations, to predict performance, and to guide users towards “better” processes. Dozens (if not hundreds) of process-mining techniques are available and their value has been proven in many case studies. However, process mining stands or falls with the availability of event logs. Existing techniques assume that events are clearly defined and refer to precisely one case (i.e. process instance) and one activity (i.e., step in the process). Although there are systems that directly generate such event logs (e.g., BPM/WFM systems), most information systems do not record events explicitly. Cases and activities only exist implicitly. However, when creating or using process models “raw data” need to be linked to cases and activities. This paper uses a novel perspective to conceptualize a database view on event data. Starting from a class model and corresponding object models it is shown that events correspond to the creation, deletion, or modification of objects and relations. The key idea is that events leave footprints by changing the underlying database. Based on this an approach is described that scopes, binds, and classifies data to create “flat” event logs that can be analyzed using traditional process-mining techniques.

Keywords: Process Mining; Event Data; Business Process Management; Event Occurrence; Near Field Communication (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2015
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

There are no downloads for this item, see the EconPapers FAQ for hints about obtaining it.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:spr:mgmchp:978-3-319-14430-6_8

Ordering information: This item can be ordered from
http://www.springer.com/9783319144306

DOI: 10.1007/978-3-319-14430-6_8

Access Statistics for this chapter

More chapters in Management for Professionals from Springer
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().